Noise works

A great idea is one thing, selling it is another. So how are you going to convince people they want your product even if they don't?

How are you ever going to know you want something if you don't know about it? No matter how fabulous your business idea, you're going to have to market the idea to others.

To market it well, you have to convince others they need what you've got, even if they don't. As Gawen Rudder from the Advertising Federation of Australia says in relation to a donut company that recently cracked the Australian market, "the world was not waiting for another donut."

At last count there were more than 50,000 marketing and advertising professionals in Australia, all working to promote things to people who didn't know they wanted them, so what would a novice know about marketing?

We're guessing not much, so here are some starting points.

The four 'P's

Some say it's old hat, but the marketing world is a fan of P parties. The four 'P's of marketing should be considered and included in any good marketing plan. They are:

Product: you have to know it. Completely. What it is, who wants it, why they want it, who else sells it and where it might be sold. If you can't tell someone the benefit of them using your product/service, chances are they won't.

Price: how you price your product is going to make up part of your appeal but take care at going for the bottom dollar. Not only do you need to make your money back, but as Roger James from the Marketing Institute of Australia says, "just using price as a differentiator from your competitors can quickly leave you with nowhere to go if they also drop their prices."

Place: this is about distribution in other words, how you're actually going to get your product to your customers. Naturally you want a good system in place that's not going to make life too hard for you or your customers. Location is also important.

Rob Masters from the Public Relations Institute of Australia describes an example of a young female podiatrist who gave herself a good head start on her business by choosing her location well.

"She set herself up next to a doctor and a dentist, with a beauty salon up the road, so she was in a complete health and beauty environment," he says. "She also marketed herself to those other outlets on a contra-referral basis."

Promotion: if you've got the first three answered, you're ready for the fun stuff. Promotion is all about how you tell the world about what you've got to offer.

Signs of the times

Big, flashy, not to mention expensive, advertising is the first thing most people think of when looking for ways to market their product. The reason advertising's expensive is because it has huge reach. A national 30 second television ad campaign that runs for four weeks would cost more than $1 million, says Rudder. But clearly exposure is also massive.

"Advertising is great when you've got a large audience and you know exactly who your customer is," says Rudder. "If you put an ad in business papers because you want to reach people working in finance you will reach them."

However, he says you need to make sure the people you're trying to talk to are not going to ignore, or worse, hate your ad.

"Ads that work understand their market and are entertaining," he says. "At the end of the day ads come up on you uninvited. It's like someone coming into your living room without being asked and selling to you. You'd better make it good."

PR daahling...

Public relations is a popular way of targeting smaller markets using a broad range of strategies like press releases and event sponsorships.

Public relations "creates talkability, so you get people to talk about your product and then act on it," explains Rudder.

If it sounds easy, it's not. "People think you just write up a press release, send it off to the media and it's going to get published," says Masters. "Often that's not the case. They often haven't understood the requirement of that newspaper and the type of news it publishes."

Likewise, Masters says people ignore some of the other PR options to get goodwill about your product or company.

"You need to look at community groups, local council, sporting groups or social clubs your business is relevant to," he says. "It's a matter of planning your year in a way that keeps your business before their eyes, whether its presenting a small community prize to a school or inviting the local politician in and creating some news."

So should you choose advertising or public relations in your marketing strategy? The answer is often a combination of the two says Jonathan Wills a lecturer at the University of Canberra.

"By using some PR and some advertising you can draw on the strengths of each," Wills advises.

From the horse's mouth...

Get a break

Twenty four-year-old William Scully-Power knows all about the difficulties of marketing yourself as a start-up operation. Not only is he on the hunt for new ways to market his three-year-old PR company MarketingFX, but his actual day job is helping start-ups in the technology industry get the exposure and publicity they need.

Not surprisingly considering the industry Scully-Power is in, he says it can be hard to get your marketing right when you don't understand the discipline.

"What we find is most companies are so close to the product they don't understand how the market perceives them," he says.

But he says finding professional help on a shoestring budget is possible.

"The power of asking for someone's advice is huge as a start-up. Pick up the phone, talk to the best in the industry and ask for help. It's amazing what you can get out of cup of coffee  people love to give advice," he says.

Scully-Power also says that while you might not be able to afford an agency, they might be able to point you in the direction of more cost effective help.

"If you call an agency and they tell you you're not ready for them yet, they might put you onto a freelancer or the like instead, and you can get help at a fraction of the cost," he says.

Cheap and cheerful tips

Not everything you do to market your business has to be big and bold or expensive.

Masters says before you start serious marketing, you need to have things like your letterhead, business cards, backgrounders on the company and a website organised.

"You have to attend to all those internal things first. Even simple things like how you answer the phone and whether there's an answering service after hours; you need to think about all those things," says Masters. "You've constantly got to be thinking of the business and that it's there at the target audience's convenience."

Attracting attention to the product can be as easy as attracting the right people's attention. James recommends trying to find 'opinion makers' who can endorse your product.

"If you've got an edgy product, try to get a celebrity or someone noteworthy to use it. Or perhaps if you're a small business and you've got a good product, you could do some sampling or have giveaways to attract customers," he says.

Quirky corner

An hour with a PR consultant can cost anywhere between $80 and $400.

There are more than 3050 media outlets in Australia, including television, radio, newspapers, newsletter and online, according to Margaret Gee's Media Guide.

Around $9.36 billion was spent on advertising in Australia in 2003.

There are more than 900 advertising agencies in Australia, and more than 150 PR consultancies, not including those not listed with the official associations.

Between 400 and 700 press releases are sent out through aapMediaNet's wire service every week